


just fine where i am

by watergator



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: dan gets a message about a high school reunion
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 199





	just fine where i am

He doesn’t realise he’s even been added to a group chat until he’s accidently opened up the app on his phone.

It takes a few scrolls of his thumb to catch himself up on what’s going on and who these people are.

His brows furrow as he reads the top message.

_ ‘Hey guys! Long time no speak! Not sure if you all remember me but it’s Rob Davies from Forrests. Me and a couple of my mates were saying how long it’s been since we all saw each other last! Probably last day of school I reckon! Anyhow, we’re thinking of having some sort of meet up sometime this month? Thinking maybe pub? We can arrange dates for those not in Wokingham area anymore, wherever they’ve flown off too 😂😂…’ _

Dan closes the message before he reads anymore. It’s all junk about what Robs been up to and to be fair, Dan couldn’t give a toss.

He’s biting his lip, trying to pretend to care about his twitter feed he’s just opened on his phone when Phil walks in.

A quick glance upwards and he notices the biscuit he’s chomping on, making a complete mess of himself and the floor Dan’s hoovered this morning.

“Crumbs,” Dan tells him flatly as he looks back at his phone. He’s still trying to push the Facebook message out of his head, but it’s there, like Rob himself is banging on the inside of his skull reciting the entire thing.

Phil moves towards him when he flops down on the couch, swinging a leg over Dan’s to awkwardly straddle him.

“Crumbs.” He repeats with a smile. “Oh, crumbs.”

Dan huffs, a frown still creased between his brows when he wriggles his hips to try and buck Phil off.

“Go away,” Dan grumbles, but Phil just laughs playfully and swats at his chest.

“But you’re so warm,” he protests with a whine. “Let me stay, five more minutes?”

He’s like a goddamn puppy, and any other time Dan would laugh and give into him just for the sake of how adorable it all is.

But his brain is like a stuck record with fucking… Rob Davies from school, voice mimicking and annoying. Stupid fucking Rob Davies.

Phil, the wonderful and incredible mind reader, picks up on this, because he stops fooling around and actually picks a crumb off Dan’s shirt where it’d fallen off his own.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Do you really want me to get off?”

His voice is so gentle. It’s nowhere near patronising or pitiful; Phil has such a good balance of being understanding as well as not just doing it all for Dan’s sake. 

Dan sighs, feeling his heart grow heavy and he shakes his head. He drops his phone and opens his arms, a decade old gesture that Phil recognises as he falls into Dan’s arms with ease.

They stay like that for a moment with Phil’s head resting over his chest, and he wonders if maybe he can hear his heartbeat from here.

Phil folded up on top of him, crooked as hell, and Dan has to wonder why they attempt to cuddle like this even though they know they can’t last very long until someone ends up with a fuzzy feeling of pins and needles.

“We’re too big to cuddle like this,” Dan mumbles into Phils hair. Little strands of it goes wispy from his breath, and Phil sits up to look at him.

“Never too big,” he says softly. “What’s wrong?”

Dan sighs, eyes flickering down before meeting Phils again. He says nothing and instead blindly reaches for his phone. 

He unlocks it and opens Facebook again where the message is still haunting the top of his inbox. He passes the phone to Phil silently, and waits for him to read it.

After a couple of seconds, Phil looking back up at Dan with a rather confused expression.

“You’re not going? Are you?” He asks.

He already sounds sure of himself, like the very notion of it all is ridiculous.

Because why  _ would  _ Dan willingly turn up to a high school reunion. Why would he?

But that’s just the question.

_ Why? _

He sighs again. “I dunno. No, probably.”

Phil lets the phone drop to the side and takes his hands in his, lacing their fingers together

“Don’t get in your head about it,” he tells him. “It’s just high school. I didn’t even know you still had them as friends on Facebook still.”

Dan chews on his lip. “Me neither. Still. What should I even say?”

Phil hums, before he leans over and kisses Dan right on the nose. He pulls away but quickly leans back in for another kiss and a chomp that has Dan huffing a laugh.

“Don’t say anything,” he eventually tells him. “Just. Ignore it if you want.”

Dan looks down at where their hands are connected. For a pretty large guy, Phil sure does have some iddy little hands. Or maybe they’re just normal sized and Dan’s are freakishly large.

Either way they’re good hands. Good hands that feel good. 

Phil gives his fingers a squeeze and he looks up to see him looking at him with a gentle expression.

“What are you thinking of right now?”

Dan’s lips curl into a faint smile.

“You. And your hands,” he tells him honestly.

Phil just chuckles as he kisses him again. A little longer and a little harder this time as he practically falls on top of him.

They both end up laughing until Phil gets greedy, trying to steal more kisses as well as whatever else he came in the room for.

But Dan pushes himself up, letting Phil fall onto the sofa, and he looks down at him, grabs his socked foot and presses his fingers into the bottom of it.

“Crumbs,” he tells him. “Clean then up first.”

Phil smirks and lets his foot flop back onto the cushion once it’s been released from Dan’s grasp.

“Alright.”

*

Later that night Dan can’t sleep. After a quick romp around (after Phil definitely did not clean up his biscuit massacre but somehow convinced Dan into bed) Phil’s already sound asleep.

At least, Dan thinks he is, because when he throws an arm over his eyes and sucks in a breath, he’s still.

Sex was a good distraction.  _ Phil  _ was a good distraction all in all. But that tiny little voice is still ringing quietly in the back of his mind; the Facebook logo taunts him behind his eyelids and Rob might as well walk into the room to see them stark naked at this point.

He exhales loudly, too loudly perhaps because Phil’s rolling over and mashing his face into his shoulder.

“Hm,” he simply says. It appears he’s holding onto a thread of consciousness for the sake of it, but failing miserably.

Dan kinda wants to roll over and pretend to sleep until his brain eventually shuts off, which likely won’t be until the early hours of the morning when everything inside his head has already turned to something equivalent to mashed potato.

Instead, he plucks up the courage to take a breath and say in a small voice,

“Hey Phil?”

There’s silence for a moment and Dan wonders if he really is properly asleep now. But Phil stirs and rubs his nose over his bare shoulder.

“Huh?” He says sleepily, voice thick like molasses, rumbling like a storm. It’s everything Dan loves about being able to lay here and just exist next to Phil like this.

He realises he’s not said anything for maybe a stretch of time too long when Phil pulls himself away and props himself up on one elbow.

He rubs at the corner of his eye with a knuckle and gives him a lopsided smile.

“I’m not asleep,” he grins. “Promise.”

Dan rolls onto his side to look at him and just about manages a smile back. It’s grown dark and with the lights off, Phil is like a low quality version of himself; fuzzy on the outside and shadowy on the inside.

“Liar,” Dan tuts. He then reaches out his hand to touch at the chest hair he knows is there, feeling around in the familiar softness until Phil hums and says.

“You alright?”

Dan drops his hand from Phil’s chest and lets out a huff of air from his nose.

“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so”.

Despite the low light, Dan can still make out the frown that happens on Phil’s face.

“Are you thinking about the reunion again?” He asks gently, and Dan replies by rolling onto his back and sinking his head deep into the pillow where he stares up at the ceiling.

“It’s stupid. It’s literally  _ so  _ stupid, I don’t even know why I worry myself over it,” he grunts, a little bit of frustration slips out, but it soon eases away when there’s a hand on his shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze.

“It depends on whether you really want to go or not,” Phil shrugs. “Delete the groupchat if you need to. Or maybe the whole app, Facebook is stupid anyways.”

Facebook  _ is  _ stupid. Out of all his social media he’d probably be happy to say that Facebook was the worst. 

It wasn’t just strangers on the internet. There isn’t even millions following him.

It’s worst because it’s a handful of people he actually knows in real life. People that went to school with him, distant relatives that are somehow related to him with the same DNA. 

They’re all people that know Dan, the almost-real Dan to some extent, and not just another drop in a million oceans of followers.

He sighs heavily and looks back at Phil.

“Do you think I should go?” He asks him quietly.

There’s a shuffle of blankets as Phil pulls them over his legs.

“I think…” he starts, but he stops, and it takes him a while before he sighs and says,

“I don’t know what to think. It’s up to you, babe.”

Dan closes his eyes. It’d be a lot easier if Phil could just make the decision for him. But right now he can’t because Phil’s right. This  _ is  _ up to him.

Phil’s patient as ever, waiting for him to say something as he hands come up to the top of his head, and his fingers brush through his curls like it’s second nature.

Dan takes a moment to think about the words bouncing around in his head, desperate to organise them so he can project them to Phil in a way he can understand.

His eyes flicker back to Phil’s face when he says,

“It’s like. I hate them. Obviously I fucking hate them. But the thing about reunions is like. What if they’re waiting for me not to show up? What if they invited me knowing I’d say no just so they can fucking… make fun of me again, and I’d never know because I wasn’t there?”

Phil hums. “Do you care what they think though?”

Dan’s quick to answer. “No.” He pauses. “Well. Maybe. Maybe I do. It’s only human, right? To want to know what someone saying behind your back, isn’t it?”

Phil pushes his curls off his forehead like he usually does when they’re like this, together and alone.

He looks at Dan. 

“I guess so. But have you always cared? Like everyday they could be talking about you, and it doesn’t bother you then.”

Dan lets out a sharp huff of laugher. “Geez. Thanks. Way to make me feel better.”

Phil gives a short laugh before ducking his head down and pressing a quick kiss to his shoulder.

“Sorry, you know what I mean though. If it doesn’t bother you then, then why does it bother you now?”

Dan chews on the inside of his cheek until it hurts.

“I dunno.”

“Then don’t go.”

Dan blinks. “But what if I could prove them wrong,” he says slowly.

“Turn up. Me. Turning up to my fucking high school reunion just to confuse the shit out of them all.”

Phil frowns for a quick second before retaining his relaxed expression. 

“You’d go all that way just to prove a point?”

Dan sighs. Maybe Phil doesn’t get it. Phil had an alright time at school. He had friends he looked forward to seeing again at his own reunion.

A reunion that Dan tagged along to. A reunion that he was proudly shown off in front of everyone as Phil’s  _ partner. _

Maybe he wants that too. Maybe Dan wants to prove to those fuckers that he did alright, he got rich and famous and his  _ partner,  _ is a fucking rich and famous guy.

Maybe he wants to finally flaunt that gayness they constantly beat him down for. 

Maybe it’s more than just wanting to prove a point of turning up. Maybe Dan wants to prove to them that he’s made the best life out of who is, despite of what they did to him.

“Would you come with me if I went?” Dan finds himself asking after a pause of silence.

“Of course,” Phil tells him. “If you wanted me to go. We could sit at the back and we’d make fun of everyone you hated.”

Dan snorts a laugh. “So everyone in the room then?”

Phil laughs back but it falls short. There’s a moment of stillness between them until Phil says,

“Do you really want to go, Dan?”

Dan thinks about it. Thinks about how good it would feel to walk into that shitty pub in shitty Wokingham and see all those shitty people and be the best guy in the room for once in his life.

How good it would feel to know that most of them probably saw his coming out video, and know that they were the ones he called out for their behaviour towards him. For them to know the pain they caused.

He chews at his lip.

But at the same time, is it really worth it?

Does he want to put himself in that position again? He could agree to go, but what if anxiety got the better of him, and he wasn’t confident and cocky? What if he ended up spending the night in a toilet stall, crying because he hasn’t actually got his shit together, and how those people that made it bad in the first place, can see that?

He looks at Phil. How he’s tucked up next him, naked as the day he was born, quiff messy as hell, completely biscuit criminal, and he smiles.

He doesn’t need to prove a point to anyone, no less to fucking Rob Davies and the rest of them.

“No,” he tells him. “I don’t think I’ll go.”

Phil smiles and lays down beside him where he kisses him. It’s long and sweet and good and Dan’s just glad that in this moment he has Phil, and that it’s all he really does need to be happy.

They break away and Dan can feel the stretch of the grin across his face.

“We’ll do our own thing that day,” Phil says quietly. “We’ll have takeaway pizza and sex marathons, just because we can, yeah?”

Dan laughs before moving closer to bury his head into Phil’s chest like it belongs. 

“We always have pizza and sex marathons though,” he mumbles there.

Phil places a kiss atop of his head and giggles.

“All the more reason for it then.”

Dan just grins, hiding himself away, tucked up to the man he loves.

*

When the day of the reunion rolls around they do have a sex marathon and they do end up getting a huge pizza to themselves.

Freshly showered and warm, cosy pyjamas on, they snuggle up on the couch together when Dan braces himself as he opens up Facebook.

There’s a plethora of photos from the pub - faces he recognises and others he doesn’t. Some people are there, others aren’t.

It doesn’t bother him. Not when Phil’s head in on his chest and he feels like he’s literally floating.

He laughs to himself as he scrolls past a photo of Rob Davies and his mates. Still knocking about together. Still the same.

Dan snorts which in turn makes Phil life his head. It’s then that Dan has a small idea.

“Hey,” ’he says. “Shall we take a picture?”

Phil blinks sleepily. “What? For Instagram?”

Dan just shakes his head. “No, not instagram. For Facebook.”

Phil frowns, giving him a confused look before he repeats the word.

“Facebook?” He asks.

Dan nods. “Yeah. Doesn’t have to be our faces it could be…” he trails off as he looks around.

And then he sees the perfect shot.

Their feet are tangled up from their outstretched legs that rest on the ottoman, the coffee table beside them with their half eaten pizza and almost empty bottle of wine.

Before Phil can say anything he tells him to stay still as he opens up his camera.

He takes the shot, and near enough, it’s perfect.

He shows it to Phil who just laughs. “What is it?” He asks.

Dan’s already adding it to his status with a little black heart emoji caption.

He looks up at Phil with a grin. “Just us,” he tells him.

Phil hums and kisses him. They both taste like pizza and warm and Dan is glad he never went back to Reading today. He’s never been more glad in all his life he reckons.

He smiles into the kiss when Phil pulls away and laughs at him gently, and it feels like home. 

They lace their fingers together, and Phil whispers,

“Just us.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


End file.
